13. ARCHITECTURE AND RHETORIC IN MUSIC OF THE AGEOF VICTORIA

John GRIFFITHSUniversity of Melbourne

MY INVOLVEMENT with Renaissance music as both scholar and performer has engendered an abiding

interest in some of the larger questions concerning its essential nature, its beauty, and the deeppersonal satisfaction that it provides to those who experience it. This has drawn me to explore

some underlying premises of music of the sixteenth century, particularly its architecture and the waythat it functions in the temporal dimension to create meaningful discourse. Through my Renaissanceinterests, I have come increasingly to marvel at the achievements of Classical Antiquity and theextraordinary way in which knowledge and understanding of the world advanced in all spheres: fromthe most external to the most internal parts of human experience in science, philosophy and the arts.Even though we know today that the planets and stars do not revolve around the earth, there is certainlymerit if not truth in the concept of the harmony of the spheres, in the belief that a natural order doesexist, and in the idea that the soul is capable of inner harmony through the assimilation of natural andrational order of the world. Renaissance humanists shared this view and devoted their energies tobringing Antiquity into the present. Sixteenth-century society assimilated classical philosophy, science,mathematics, art, architecture, poetry and drama. Particularly evident in the arts, pagan Classical idealswere adapted to serve the new age, although moderated to some extent by the need to coexist withina deeply Christian society. The resultant tensions were reconciled rather than rejected in recognitionof the profundity of knowledge and insight that accompanied the rebirth of the Classical past.

One of the problems that has faced scholars of Renaissance music is the way that music fits in tothe notion of rebirth that is implicit in the very term. While it is understood that the revival of themusic of Antiquity was not possible in a manner analogous to what was possible in other art forms, therehas never been any reason to question the aesthetic connection between them. The purpose of thisstudy, then, is to explore this relationship and to try to explain why Renaissance music sounds likeRenaissance music. I am interested not only to explore the way that music exists as a completelyautonomous entity, but also to investigate how it parallels the aesthetic and cultural values of its time,and how these contribute to giving music composed in the sixteenth century its identity and its senseof historical place. My argument is based, firstly, on the observation that the design of many sixteenth-century musical works is parallel to the symmetry and proportionality found in many other areas ofRenaissance art and architecture. At the same time, I recognise that a study of the spatial dimensionalone is insufficient, and that any meaningful explanation of music needs also to consider the temporaldimension. This involves exploring musical narrative, understood and expressed in the early modernperiod through the prism of rhetoric, and the conjunction between the spatial and temporal dimensionsthat occurs in music of the sixteenth century. The second part of this study examines music by TomasLuis de Victoria within this framework and in celebration of the fourth centenary of his death, showingaspects of his work that shows him, too, to be a child of his tines.

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My first investigation of these ideas was in the context of instrumental music, as part of the researchfor my dissertation on the vihuela fantasia'. One of the most surprising findings of that project was thelarge number of works that appeared to be based on formal architecture that could be understoodthrough ideas of proportionality. This was in contrast to existing notions of the fantasia as a free flightof fancy, the product of an improvisatory practice of free extemporisation in real time. In general, noorganisational rationale was thought to govern the fantasia-ricercar genre even though it waspredominantly constructed from imitative points and other more idiomatic devices assembled togetherin a way analogous to the motet.

The methodology I developed for this work in the 1970s drew from various other scholarly areas.Mainstream writings on music history and analysis were of little use as the fantasia was usuallydismissed as an indeterminate musical form, and the idea of formal proportionality in Renaissancemusic had only been explored in exceptional cases, particularly concerning isorhythmic motets. Amongsuch studies, of course the most famous is the 1973 article by Charles Warren that argues for an directrelationship between Dufay's motet Nuper rosarum fibres and the new cathedral in Florence designedby Brunelleschi, and for whose consecration it was composed in 14362. I n d e e d , t h e p i o n e e r i n g w o r k i n

the architecture of Renaissance music that awakened my interest was a remarkable pilot study by OttoGombosi, a brief but brilliant analysis of formal organisation in a ricercar by Francesco Canova daMilano3. G om bo s i' s p rema tu re death in 1955 was to curtail this line of investigation with reference to

instrumental music for a further twenty-five years although its memory was preserved by Arthur Nessin his 1970 edition of the music of Francesco da Milano'', and expanded a decade later by Jean-MichelVaccaro in his investigation of fantasias in sixteenth-century French sources. In his analyses of worksby Albert de Rippe and other composers, Vaccaro lucidly demonstrated structure through architecturallydistributed transcriptionss. In addition to formal considerations, he also acknowledged the discursiverhetorical dimension of the music through analogy with poetry, although he did not attempt to pursueit further: 'The motivic and imitative fantasia is built from a succession of segments (groups), terminatedby a cadence and exploiting a particular rhythmic or melodic idea (the motif). [...] In an instrumentalcomposition, everything seems to happen as if the author assumed the existence of an underlyingpoetic structure. The fantasia can then be understood as a poem; various groups band together to formlarger units (sections) just as the verses can be grouped into stanzas; cadences play the role ofpunctuation...'6.

At the time I started to work with Renaissance musical structures, studies on rhetoric and musicwere still largely focussed on baroque music and the analysis of detailed surface structure throughFigurenlehre, the study of melodic figures and their specific affective associations according to

'John Griffiths: The Vihuela Fantasia: A Comparative Study of Forms and Styles, Ph.D. diss., Monash University, 1983,2 Charles Warren: "Rmnelleschi's Dome and Dufay's Motet", The Musical Quarterly, 59, 1973, pp. 92-105. The findings of Warren'sstudy were later challenged and revised by Craig Wright: "Dufay's Nuper Rosarum fibres, King Solomon's Temple and the Venerationof the Virgin", Journal of the American Musicological Society, 47, 1994, pp. 395-441.3 Otto Gombosi: "A la recherche de la Forme dans la Musique de la Renaissance: Francesco da Milano", in Jean Jacquot (ed.): LaMusique Instrumentale de la Renaissance, Paris, CNRS, 1955, pp. 165-176.Arthur J. Ness (ed.): The Lute Music of Francesco Canova do Milano (1497-1543), Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1970.

5 Jean-Michel Vaccaro: La musique de luth en France au XVIe siecle, Paris, CNRS, 1981.6 Ibid., p. 384: la fantaisie a motifs et imitations se construit par une succession de segments (les groupes), termines par unecadence et exploitant une idee melodique ou rythmique particuliere (le motif). [...1 Dans une composition instnimentale, toutparalt se passer comme si l'auteur supposait l'existence d'une structure poetique sous-jacente. La fantaisie peut alors se comprendrecomme un poeme; les divers groupes s'associent pour former des ensembles plus vastes (les sections) tout comme les vers peuventetre rassembles en strophes; les cadences y jouent un role de ponctuations_'.

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codifications made by seventeenth and eighteenth-century theorists7. A p a r t f r o m t h e g r e a t e r r e l e v a n c e

of this approach to music of later centuries, the study of figures pertains to the artifice of rhetoricaldelivery, to its elaboratio rather than to the structure of argument, or dispositia

It was only later, in the early 1990s, that writings on rhetorical discourse in the sixteenth centurybegan to emerge and that were to help provide a theoretical basis for the more intuitive explorationsof musical narrative, such as my own had been. One of the first provocative works in the field wasWarren Kirkendale's study of the preludial function of early sixteenth-century ricercars8. O t h e rpioneering works addressing rhetoric and musical narrative in Renaissance music include a book byMark Bonds on 'wordless rhetoric', and studies on English solo lute music and songs by Robin HeadiamWells and Robert Toft9.

The application of Humanist rhetoric to the study of vocal polyphony developed around the sametime as the studies cited relating to instrumental music, A 1972 article by Claude Palisca was amongthe first within a study arguing for Musical mannerism in the late sixteenth centurym. Growth of interestin the area was acknowledged by Cristle Collins Judd in her 1985 survey of the analytical challengesfacing the study of Renaissance polyphony and was addressed by Stephen Krantz shortly thereafter inhis doctoral dissertation on Josquin, and a volume of 1988 conference proceedings edited by MarcoGozzil l The application of rhetoric to music is also informed by modern scholarship dealing withmusical narrative, particularly along the lines enunciated over half a century ago by Leonard B. Meyerin his influential Emotion and Meaning in Music, that extended information theory into the musicaldomain by looking at the listener's expectations of normative behavioural patterns associated withparticular musical styles12. I n t h e a r e a o f R e n a i s sa n c e p o l y ph o n y a nd as an e x te n si o n of M ey er 's i de as ,

the methodology for the analysis of narrative continuity by Arnold Salop provides a useful means forexamining music with logical explanation of the critical moments in works that can be seen tocorrespond with key points in rhetorical discourse. These studies are some of those that have helpedme come to understand some of the processes used by composers in the sixteenth century to shapetheir music, and are the springboard for my own ideas. These are issues that face all performers wishingto produce deeply satisfying interpretations of Renaissance music, and deserve greater presence incurrent musicological discourse.

One of the impediments in the study of the large-scale architecture of sixteenth-century music isthat the topic is all but absent in the theoretical writings of the period. Many sixteenth-century treatises

7 For an appreciation of the development of contemporary scholarship, see Patrick McCreless: "Music and rhetoric", in ThomasChristensen (ed.): The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 847-849.8 Warren Kirkendale: "Ciceronians versus Aristotelians on the Ricercar as Exordium", Journal of the American Musicological Society,32, 1979, pp. 1-44.9 Mark Evan Bonds: Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1991;Robin Headlam Wells: "The Art of Persuasion: A Note on the Lyric 'Come again: sweet love doth now invite' ", The Lute SocietyJournal, 16, 1974, pp. 67-69; Robin Headlam Wells: "The ladder of Love: Verbal and musical rhetoric in the Elizabethan lute-song",Early Music, 12, 1984, pp. 173-189; Robert Toft: "Musicke a sister to Poetrie: Rhetorical artifice in the passionate airs of JohnDowland", Early Music, 12, 1984, pp. 190-199, Robert Toft: "An Approach to Performing the Mid 16th-Century Italian Lute Fantasia",The Lute, 25, 1985, pp. 3-16; and Robert loft: Tune thy Musicke to thy Harte: the Art of Eloquent Singing in England 1597-1622,Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1993.it) Claude Palisca: "Ut Oratona Musica: The Rhetorical Basis of Musical Mannerism", in E. W. Robinson & S. G. Nichols (eds.): The

Meaning of Mannerism, Hanover NH, University Press of New England, 1972, pp. 37-59.11 Cristie Collins Judd: Some Problems of Pre-Baroque Analysis: An Examination of Josquin's Ave Maria... Virgo serena", MusicAnalysis, 4, 1985, pp. 201-240; Steven C. Krantz: Rhetorical and Structural Functions of Mode in Selected Motets of losquin des Prez,Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1989; and Marco Gozzi (ed.): Struttura e retorica nella musica profana del Cinquecentor Attidel Convegno, Trento, Centro S. Chiara, 23 ottobre 1988, Rome, Edizioni Torre d'Orfeo, 1990.12 Leonard B. Meyer: Emotion and Meaning in Music, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1956.13 Arnold Salop: Studies in the History of Musical Style, Detroit, Wave State University Press, 1971.

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that deal with the elements of musical composition -notation, intervals, rhythm, counterpoint, mode,cadences, etc.- but, concerning questions of musical structures, however, sixteenth-century musictheorists are remarkably taciturn. Among the few who contemplate aspects of compositional processnot even the early seventeenth-century theorist Pietro Cerone comes close to addressing the questionsthat are of interest to us here". To my knowledge, no single sixteenth-century writer addresses thebigger question of how to combine all the parts into a coherent whole. Perhaps it was consideredunnecessary to elucidate such questions simply because the musico-rhetorical relationships thatdetermined the shape of musical structures were widely understood and the procedures were self-evident, particularly in vocal polyphony where the text determines the narrative discourse. Given theabsence of theoretical corroboration, the evidence must be drawn from within the music itself and itis for this reason that external references to architecture and rhetoric are useful so that the examinationof the music does not become overly self-referential. Concepts associated with Renaissance architectureand rhetoric can therefore help us answer the unanswered questions about compositional process,.narrative and structure in Renaissance polyphony.

The conceptual framework of my discussion is summarised in Figure 1. The ideas are still in anexperimental phase, distilled from my own personal experience of music, from intuitive responsestempered by historical and stylistic knowledge. I am confident in asserting that this represents a validway for viewing sixteenth-century vocal and instrumental polyphony music, but make no claim forwider application. It is derived from specific architectonic and rhetorical ideas that were extensivelytaught and practised during the sixteenth century, and the observation that such qualities of the musiccan be 'heard' -perceived or experienced- in both the temporal and spatial dimensions. By 'temporalexperience' of music I am referring to the direct experience of listening to music as a series of soundsand events that proceed through time, and that become logically connected into some kind of narrativediscourse, or rhetoric. Without any incompatibility, music can also be perceived in the 'spatialdimension', outside the real time of performance, converted into an image or impression a musicalwork that is retained in the memory after it has been heard. On the one hand, this allows melodies andother specific musical features to be recalled at a later time, and also enables abstract images to becreated that permit musical works to be contemplated in their totality and conceptualised on a singlecanvas outside the dimension of time. The temporal dimension is thus intimately connected withnarrative or rhetoric, while the spatial dimension allows the perception of the proportional aspects ofbalance and design.

14 Pietro Cerone: El melopeo y maestro. Tractado de musica theorica y practica, Naples, Gargano e Nucci, 1613; rpt. Bologna, Forni,1969. These topics are considered above all by Cerone in book 12 linos avisos muy necessarios para mayor perfeccidn de laCompostura' (Ibid., p. 652). Despite the promise of chapter titles such as 'Captitulo V. De comae! imitar cone! canto el sentido dela letra, adorna may mucho la Composicion' (Ibid., pp. 665-672), subsequent chapters on individual compositional genres arehardly more revealing. In the chapter on motets, for example, 'La manera que se ha de tener para componer un Motete. Cap. Xll'(Ibid., pp. 685-687), the ten rules he offers are superficial and provide very little real guidance of the type that we might wish tofind. The first four are concerned with the note values that should be used to create music of appropriate solemnity, while the fifthsuggests that the melodic material should be newly invented rather than borrowed. The final five pertain to the nature of cadences:that the motet should have its closing cadence on the modal final, that the same music can be used to conclude the prima andsecunda pars of a motet if the text is the same for both, that cadences ending sections or partes within the motet may finish onother notes, particularly the fifth, and that successive cadences should not be made on the co-final. These hint at structuralconcerns but go no further. Subsequent discussion of the composition of Masses, revolves around the parody or imitation process,while his guidance for psalms, canticles and hymns explains how to incorporate plainsong melodies, and how to set text accordingto liturgical practice. Translation of this chapter is in Oliver Strunk: Source Readings in Music History: The Renaissance, New York,Norton, 1965, pp. 263-265 .

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rhetoric

discoursenarrative or argument

Architecture and Rhetoric in Music of the Age of Victoria

( architecture)

space

unityproportion & symmetry;

Figure 1. Music in its rhetorical (temporal) and architectural (spatial) dimensions

ARCHITECTURAL & RHETORICAL MODELS

The eye easily discerns 'the Renaissance' in art and architecture. The spatial dimension in sixteenth-century design was governed by Classical aesthetic values based on rational organisation according tolaws of proportion, balance and symmetry. Beauty, knowledge and proportion were closely linked byvalues ultimately derived from Pythagorean theories of cosmic harmony that attempt to explain therational order of the universe expressed through number. Art and design based on unity through balanceand proportion predominate in the creative endeavour of sixteenth-century artists. In the same way,Renaissance musical works perceived in spatial terms become the sonic embodiment of the sameprinciples of proportion and balance. Above all else, this is what connects the polyphony of the sixteenthcentury to its cultural context to make Renaissance music a child of its time.

In considering style and innovation in sixteenth-century music, mainstream music history focusseson advances in polyphonic writing and the new increased levels of expressiveness that was achievedby composers of the period. Humanist culture, however, was equally interested in number andproportion, and while considerable attention has been directed to some aspects of musical structure,particularly regarding cyclic Mass composition, insufficient attention has been devoted to the way thatideas derived from the study of number were used in music to mirror aspects of the numerical harmonyof the Pythagorean universe. In other spheres such as architecture, buildings were designed drawinginspiration from Classical models, nearly always derived from principles drawn from numericallyexplicable proportions. A church such as Basilica di Sant'Andrea in Mantua (begun 1471) is aparadigmatic example of a building conforming to simple numerical ratios that give a sense of unified,harmonic proportion. Humanist architect Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), renowned for his study ofthe proportions of classical models, based the design of the basilica's facade on a square that dividesinto 4 on both its vertical and horizontal axes (Figure 2). Every other element of the building is planned.around this central geometrical construct. Consciously or perhaps in unconscious response to thedominant ideas of the time, Renaissance polyphonists constructed their works based on analogousdesigns and concepts.

Adapting architectonic paradigms to fit polyphonic musical compositions is quite straightforward.The principles and the resultant proportionality are the same even if musical structures occupy timerather than space. For the sake of making a hypothetical example, let us consider a set of four archesthat could easily be drawn from an architectural construct such as part of a bridge or colonnade (Figure3). The proportionality of this set of arches is self evident. The length of the imaginary colonnade is eighttimes the height of the arches, and the division of the length into four equal parts has both symmetryand proportion of a kind that can be both sensed empirically and explained rationally. My contentionis that the human mind can make the same judgements of proportion in the temporal dimension withthe same facility as it can in the spatial dimension. In this case the senses should be able to perceivefour temporal units equivalent to the arches and the mind should be able to comprehend theirproportional relationship rationally, whether it be a representation of time or space.

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236

Figure 2. Leon Battista Alberti, Facade of the Basilica di Sant'Andrea in .1 ,1 a n t u aAs codified discourse designed principally for oration, Classical rhetoric is concerned mainly with

the argumentative mode, segmented into a number of parts -its dispositio- t h a t e n c o m p a s s a m o o d -setting introduction (exordium), the enunciation of the main topic of discussion (propositio), a summaryof received opinion (narratio), the speaker's argument (confirmatio), rebuttal of anticipated criticism(re futatio), and an ending that hits home the point (conclusio). This scheme implies a gradualintensification of dramatic tension to a climactic point close to the end of the discourse and whichabates during the condusia There are obvious direct analogies between this model and musicaldiscourse, but it would be unrealistic to expect them to be literal. Not only is music too abstract to bestrictly divisible into the parts of a rhetorical dispositio, but the texts set to music are customarilyexpressed in a narrative mode rather than through.argumentation. In music, then, the classic modelmight respond to a simpler structure that does not require either a narratio or re futatio.

Figure 3. Structural arches

To represent musical structures graphically in a way that incorporates the rhetorical dimension aswell as the architectonic, the most obvious way is to consider the height of the arches as a variable thatcan show dramatic intensity. Thus, the diagrammatic representation becomes something of a coaxialgraph in which the horizontal x-axis indicates time, and the vertical y-axis is a measure of narrative orrhetorical intensity (Figure 4). Given that there is also usually some kind of fluctuation of intensity

within each period the symmetry of the arches can also be distorted so that they more closely representthe life cycle of each musical episode: their genesis, extension, culmination and conclusion.

The asymmetrical distortion of the arches represents the continual dynamic movement that takesplace during the performance of narratively conceived music, yet the narrativity does not destroy itsproportionality. As the music progresses forward through time, the periodicity of its proportionaldistribution is perceived, along with the rhetorical structure of its narrative that is a principal factor inbeing able to comprehend to entire musical work as a rational whole. This dynamic distortion, in fact,is essential in order to avoid the music becoming overly predictable. It could even be said that thecomposer's craft consists of continually looking for ways to vary the pattern, to preserve a tensionbetween expectations and eventuality, as well as the interplay between novelty and conformity.

Still remaining within the abstract and using the same diagrammatic model, Figure 5 presents arepresentation of a typical rhetorical argument in which each segment of the rhetorical scheme isconsidered an independent unit as it unfolds through time. In the upper version of the diagram, theintensity levels correspond to an archetypal description of rhetorical delivery, with the arches distortedfor the reasons indicated above. The lower version of the same diagram includes a second arch thatextends over the entire work in order to show that the individual sections are not independent of oneanother and that the discourse should be understood as a single unified and cohesive unit. Coherenceis a fundamental part of the art of persuasion.

Exordium Propostdo Narratio

Architecture and Rhetoric in Music of the Age of Victoria

Figure 4. Abstract heightened, asymmetrical representations of musical structure

Conftrmatto Confutatio

Figure 5, Intensity and the rhetorical argument

Cortclusio

In music, coherence is achieved by a variety of associations, sometimes analogous to rhetoricaldiscourse, occurring at different levels of the musical fabric. Each musical episode in Renaissancepolyphony is usually built from a single thematic idea and, in vocal music, a single verse of poetic text.Successive episodes are often connected, especially when the new verse of text is part of the samesentence as the one that precedes it. Composers often linked these with interlocking cadences so thatno momentum is lost while using the cadence at the same time to signify a division between one ideaand the next. Through processes such as this, individual musical episodes become linked together into

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larger continuous units. These were specifically designed so that the listener could perceive both thepoints of sectional division as well as the narrative continuity of larger units. The lengths of the episodesvary according to textual requirements, but it is highly significant here to note that these larger units-sections comprising a number of separate episodes- are frequently of related proportion. This can bedemonstrated in hundreds of sixteenth-century musical works and appears to be a common techniquein the formal design of works that otherwise appear to have no design plan. The most common designis one in which the principal internal cadence occurs exactly at the midpoint of the work, and withthese cadences respectively on the modal dominant or repercussio [R], and the modal finalis [F]. Thisis noted by Cerone in the passage of El melopeo y el maestro that discusses how to compose motets,cited above. This type of structure is also the dominant pattern in instrumental fantasias, and thereforethe abstract scheme shown in Figure 6 could represent equally a short motet by Morales or a vihuelafantasia by Nenliana. It suggests a work composed of four separate episodes built on individual ideasthat form two internal paired groups, separated by a strong cadence. In this sense the episodes arelinked into longer periods, and the periods in combination make up the entire work, linked togetherby their literary sense and their musical content in a way that can be expressed as a conjoinedarchitectural and rhetorical scheme.

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Figure 6. I Episodes 2 Periods 3 Complgte composition

Awareness of this dimension of compositional practice or compositional style in the sixteenthcentury has been conspicuously absent from music studies. As an example, let us consider brieflyCipriano de Rore's well-known madrigal De le belle contrade del Oriente from his Quinto libro di madrigali(1566), which has been used widely in undergraduate university teaching of Renaissance polyphonythroughout the world for over half a century and reprinted many times in historical anthologies ofmusic". It is astonishing, however, that the even the most recent discussions of this piece and othersimilar music never allude to its architecture.

15 The work has appeared in Archibald T. Davison & Willi Apel (eds.): Historical Anthology of Music, Cambridge MA, Harvard UniversityPress, 1949; and has been reprinted as recently as in the sixth edition of J. Peter Burkholder & Claude V. Palisca (eds.): NortonAnthology of Western Music, New York, Norton, 2010.

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VICTORIA

Missa Avemails stella

40 4 0

80

30 5 0

80

Figure 8. Cipriano de Rare, Da le belle contrade d'oriente, narrative plan

My preliminary investigations give reason to believe that the music of Tomas Luis de Victoria alsohas a similar degree of order and proportion in the way it is constructed. My examination of six massesis only a reconnaissance mission to assess proportionality in his structural architecture and isadmittedly superficial. Of the thirty movements in this set of masses, at least eighteen of them exhibitseemingly incontrovertible proportional structures, and a further five movements could also beconsidered as possibly proportional. This represents between 60% and 77% in total and, surprisingly,includes all of the Gloria and Credo movements in which the length and the nature of their texts mightbe more likely to interfere with architectural proportions in comparison to the greater freedom thatcomposers found in setting the shorter texts of the Kyrie and Agnus Del. The proportions aresummarised in Figure 9. The movements with strongly proportional sections are indicated in dark greywhile those with less certain proportionality are indicated in light grey.

Missa Simile estregnumcoekrum

Missa de Beata M i s s a M i s s a Quam Missa 0 quamMaria Virgine Gaudeamus pu lch r i stint glor iosum

Figure 9. Tomas Lois de Victoria, sectional ratios in selected masses

Figure 10 gives the lengths of each of the principal sections in each movement of this group ofmasses, the figures used to calculate the ratios in Figure 9. All are all given in tactus units, normallysemibreves in the original notation, except for sections using proportional signatures. This means thatthe proportions approximate the time scale of performance time rather than bar numbers in a score.The most highly proportional among the masses given here is the Missa Ave marts stela As can beseen, each movement is strongly proportional i f allowance is made for minor mathematicaldiscrepancies. Differences of 2 or 4 tacti between sections is hardly perceptible when the measurementis being made in the temporal terms of performance. Both the Missa Simile est regnum coelorum andMissa Gaudeamus demonstrate proportional planning in four of their five movements. At the other

extreme, the Missa Quam putchri sunt is the one that demonstrates less concern with internalproportionality. In this Mass, the only clearly proportional movement is the Credo that shows a ratioof approximately 3:1, but it seems unlikely that a composer would ever intend that listeners perceivesuch a proportion audibly. The Missa 0 gum gloriosum shows strong proportionality in its Gloria andCredo and in the first two parts of the Kyrie, and the evidence for proportional planning in the Missade Beata Maria Virgine is somewhat ambivalent.

Missa Avemarls stella

Ow)

MiSsa Similenet . .r" "9 n" :

l ivri"

Missa de BeataMaria Virgine

(5w)Missa

Gaudeamus(6w)

Missa (Nampukhri sure(livv)

,

Migsa 0 quamgloriosum(4w)

KYRIEKyrie 1 44 34 32 56 44 22Christe 44 30 , 36 42 36 22Kyrie 2 44 32 42 40 36 30

GLORIAEt in terra 132 104 120 150 148 90Cgti wills 130 100 135 146 124 92

ODOPatrent 140 202 288 330 220 188Et resurrecit 70Et in spriturn 144 108 142 166 69 98

SANCTUSSanctus 90 96 121 116 110 100Benedictus 92 100 100 112 88 78

AGNUS DEIAgnus 1 74 64 76 76 68 68Agnts 2 74 78 74 76 56 ----

Victoria's motets are generally short, concise, and to the point. Although he was a master of theintensity of his expression, it is difficult to analyse these pieces in narrative terms because there Islimited place for rhetorical development and detailed analysis therefore runs the risk of appearingtrivial. On the other hand, examination of outer structure and sectional length shows considerableattention to questions of proportion. Among the small number of Victoria's motets composed in twopartes, three have partes of similar enough length for them to be recognised as of equal proportion inperformance.

0 regemAscendens Christus in altumDum complerentur

Architecture and Rhetoric in Music of the Age of Victoria

Figure 10. Tomas Luis de Victoria, sectional lengths in selected Mass movements

62 + 63 bars (based on the Angles edition)1771 + 6786 + 76

17 Tomas Luis de Victoria: Opera omnia. Primera edicion por Felipe Pedrell, nueva ediciOn corregida y aumentada por Higinio Angles,Monumentos de la musica espanola XXV, XXVI, )0CX, Rome, CSIC,D;legacion de Roma, 1965-1968.

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0 vos omnes 33 + 35 bars0 magnum mysterium 38 + 36Vere languores 28+30+10Descendit angelus Domini 40 + 20

John Griffiths

The most precise is 0 regem caeli with partes of 62 and 63 bars, respectively. The jubilant five-voicemotet Ascendens Christus in altum is less elact, but the difference of only four bars is less than tenseconds in performance time in a work of nearly four and a half minutes and would therefore soundquite well balanced as two equal units. Less compelling is the case for Dum complerentur in which thetwo partes are respectively 86 and 76 bars. This difference is possibly too large for them to be perceivedas equal.

Of the single-movement motets, perhaps the two that are most clearly proportional are the wellknown works 0 vos omnes and 0 magnum mysterium. Not a great number of the other motets exhibitobviously immediate proportional design, but those worthy of consideration include the haunting Verelanguores, composed as two equal 30-bar sections with an added 10-bar coda and Descendit angelusDomini which exhibits a 2:1 proportional design.

To demonstrate the way in which these ideas of conjoined architecture and rhetoric can be used toexplain and illuminate design features in Victoria's music, I have selected one of Victoria's best-knownmotets, Nigra sum sed formosa, a six-voice work first published in 1576 and his setting of thisambiguously sensual antiphon derived from the Song of Songs and sung at Marian Vespers". Typicalof the concision of Victoria's motets, the text comprises eight verses of differing length, set to music inphrases of between four and thirteen bars, and has a total length of 69 bars that occupy three to fourminutes in performance. The text is distributed in the following way19: Verse L e n g t h (bars)1 N i g r a sum sed formosa, fillae Jerusalem: 4

2 i d e o dilexit me Rex, 93 e t introduxit me in cubiculum suum, 94 e t dixit 1 05 S u r g e , arnica mea, et veni: 1 36 l a m hiems transit, imber abiit, et recessit. 97 F l o r e s apperuerunt in terra nostra, 38 t e r n pus putatitionis advenit. 1 2

By examining text and music together and reading them within the frame of architecture and rhetoric,I have constructed a diagrammatic representation of the work (Figure 11) along the lines of the abstractmodels presented earlier in this study20. T h e i n i t i a l s e c t i o n a l d i v i s i o n s a r e b a s ed o n t h e d i s t r i bu t i o n of

the text. Given the brevity of the work and the semantic organisation of the text, it makes more sense to

18 Thomae Ludovici de Victoria abulensis co/legit germanici in urbe roma musicae moderatoris. Liber primus, qui missas, psalmos,Magnificat, ad Virginem Dei Matrem salutationes. Alia que complectitur,Venice, A. Gardano, 1576. A facsimile of the work is availableonline at

Architecture and Rhetoric in Music of the Age of Victoria

divide the text and the 69 bars of music into five sense units instead of eight separate units. There isinternal evidence in the design of the music to suggest that Victoria saw it this way himself, for example,in the way that he joins the first two verses together by eschewing a strong cadence between them, andby using the initial motive of the opening homophonic phrase as the imitative head motive for settingthe second verse. The motet, then, is divided into sections of almost identical length, indicated in thediagram with Roman numerals. The initial bar number of each section is shown in italics, and the lengthof each is shown within the shaded areas representing the sections. With the exception of section II ofnineteen bars, the sections are of twelve or thirteen bars, therefore giving the work balance and a senseof internal symmetry. The longer second section is also explicable as part of the work's rhetorical scheme.The outer framework also shows considerable balance, being divisible into two large architectural sectionsof similar proportion, 32 and 33 bars, plus a four-bar cadential extension from bar 65. The main pointof sectional division occurs at the beginning of verse 5, the mid-point of the poetry, and precisely on thefirst statement of the key word 'Surge'. This structure is reinforced by parallel final cadence patterns(indicated on the diagram) in the sequence d' -g/d-D-G I.

The rhetorical dimension of the motet is evident in the close relationship between music and text,the way that all musical elements are marshalled in service of the textual declamation and affect. Thisincludes both the contrapuntal and harmonic organisation of the music and, in particular, themanipulation of texture. Although there is often not a strong literal correspondence between musicaltexts and the parts of rhetorical dispositio, the first sections of this motet are more readily analogousto an exordium and propositio than is often the case. Each of these sections is complete in its own right,built from paired verses of text that are developed with textural parallelism: verses 1 and 3 are set toa form of homophony, and their complements (verses 2 and 4) are set imitatively. These are representedon the diagram with the letters H (homophony) and I (imitation), and with arrows beneath that indicatethe parallelism. This is in contrast to the second half of the work that begins and ends with imitativetextures and that employs predominantly homophonic textures, mainly contrasting block voice groupsin its central bars 37-57.

As outlined above, the two verses of section I are skillfully linked together to make a single unit thatblossoms from its opening homophonic declamation in five voices into imitations of the same principalmotive, but with new text. The same textural program is applied to section II, but with the openinghomophony changed into homophonic trios, S-S-T interlocking with A-T-B, and with a prolongation to19 bars through the insistent although inexact imitations of the phrase 'et dixit T h i s gives sectionll a greater sense of weight than the previous one, a heightened sense of development, as well as acertain suspense through detaining arrival at the exclamatory phrase 'Surge, arnica mea', the beginningof section III. The affinities in the structure and content of these two sections as well as the clear sense of narrative continuity between them function together to give a strong sense of cohesion that makesthem readily associable as a larger unified structural entity.

The second half of the work commences with the madrigalian setting of verse 5, it is three sub-groups treated with three different textures: imitation of a rising 'Surge' motive (spanning as much asa ninth in some voices), grouped voices S-S-A and T-T-B on 'arnica mea', and brief imitations on 'et vent',then bridging the colon that separates it from the following verse through a weak half cadence to theanimated homophony of 'tam hiems transit' that announces the passing of winter at the opening of

Madrid, Union Musical Espanola, 1964. Other transcriptions can be consulted online, such as the Petrucci Music Librarydittp://imslp.orgiwild/Nigra_sumJVictoria,,Tomasduis_de)> (accessed 9 May 2012) and on the site dedicated to the music ofTomas Luis de Victoria authored by Manch Alvarez (accessed 9May 2012). Following Rubio's transcription, this latter version is transposed a fourth lower than written pitch in line with theperformance practice associated with the use of chlavette. Numerousiecordings are also available on YouTube.

243

John Griffiths

section IV This is arguably the highpoint of the musico-poetic utterance of the music, continuing as freepolyphony in all voices, then with the tkture gradually losing intensity through the reduced textureof the four-voiced homophonic sound blocks (S-S-A-I / A-T-I-B) that announce the optimism of spring.In the closing verse that declaims that the 'time of pruning has arrived' Victoria returns to imitative textsetting, but crafts them in a way that slows the harmonic rhythm of the passage to counter its rhythmicintensity. This is done by static repeated harmonic progressions in bars 59-60, 61-62 and beyond, witha final cadence at bar 66, followed by a coda with a pedal in two voices and a characteristic set ofreiterations of a plagal progression.

244

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My main aim in this study has been to raise some questions about the way Renaissance composersapproached the structural aspects of their craft within the prevailing artistic climate of their age. Victoriahas been a testing ground for ideas, my vehicle rather than my direct object. His music has not beenexplored in depth with regard to its architecture and rhetoric of his music yet, as is the case with somany other composers of his time, the preliminary findings derived from an almost random scratchingof the surface are positive. They suggest that it has the potential to bear fruit and reveal something newabout Victoria's music and the style of his age. At the moment the proposition that the architecturalprinciples of the Renaissance were assimilated and used by Renaissance polyphonists remainsunproven. It requires a comprehensive and systematic study if the proposition is to gain widespreadacceptance. There is good reason to be optimistic, and more comprehensive studies are also likely torefine our observations and help draw much more subtle conclusions that cannot be predicted at thisstage.

As has been observed, the theorists are silent concerning the notion of how all the componentsmusical, and non musical were to be assembled into cohesive balanced objects of sonorous beauty.This has been the prime focus of the discussion, a deliberation about the way that we choose to

Architecture and Rhetoric in Music of the Age of Victoria

contemplate Renaissance music today, and a search for a meaningful way of discussing musical worksin their wholeness. Architecture and rhetoric are analogies that encourage a way of considering musicalworks in both space and time, giving consideration to their perception in both the senses and the mind,emotion and intellect combined.

245

Javier Surez-Pajares, Manuel del Sol (eds.)

Estudios. Toms Luis de Victoria. Studies

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INTRODUCCIN. UNA REFLEXIN HISTORIOGRFICA/INTRODUCTION. A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION

Javier Surez-Pajares

I. FUENTES Y OBRAS / SOURCES AND WORKS

2. The Cathedral, the Copyist, the Composer and the Canon: Revising ToledoCathedral's Victoria Choirbook and the Liber primus (1576)

Michael NOONE & Graeme SKINNER

4. Why Should We Sing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land? Victoria's PsalmSettings Composed for Rome

Noel O'REGAN

5. Homine Hispano or Uomo Universale? Victoria's Marian Masses and the Caseof Artistic Identity in the Late-Sixteenth Century

Christiane WIESENFELDT

8. Singing Praises to Mary in a New World: A Salve regina Attributedto Tomas Luis de Victoria in Puebla, Mexico

Grayson WAGSTAFF

13

1. From Print to Public: The Milanese and Dillingen Editions of Victoria's Motets 2 7lain FENLON

37

3. Rethinking Victoria's Lamentations in Post-Tridentine Rome 5 5Manuel del SOL

77

93

6. Victoria's Officium defunctorum (1605) in Context 1 0 3Owen REES

7. Who Wrote the Second Ave marls stella of Tomas Luis de Victoria? 1 1 5Adrian GIARDINA

127

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20. La vida en las Descalzas Reales a travs de los epistolariosde Juan de Borja (1584-1604)

Ferran ESCRIVik LORCA

V. ESTUDIOS HISTORIOGRAFICOS / HISTORIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES

22. Victoria in Germania. Toms Luis de Victoria y la historiografa alemanahasta principios del siglo XX

Cristina URCHUEGUIA

23. Toms Luis de Victoria en la obra mu sicolgica de Felipe Pedrell:la creacin de un mito nacional

Manuel SANCHO GARCA

VI. VICTORIA EN LOS SIGLOS XX y XXI / VICTORIA IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES

25. Toms Luis de Victoria reinventado por Manuel de Falla:homenajes, recreaciones y versiones expresivas

Elena TORRES

26. Otro aniversario de Toms Luis de Victoria: 1940 o el resurgimientodel espritu nacional

Mercedes CASTILLO FERREIRA

Javier SUREZ-PAJARES

28. Victoria, notre contemporain? Toms Luis de Victoria en la creacinmusical espaola actual

Germn GAN ("USADA

RESMENES / ABSTRACTS

INDICE ONOMSTICO / INDEX

437

21. Victoria and the English Choral Tradition 4 5 5Tess KNIGHTON

477

489

24. Victoria, anteayer mismo. La contribucin de Samuel Rubio 5 0 1Alfonso de VICENTE

523

547

27. Toms Luis de Victoria, Pablo Sorozbal y la sptima de Shostakvich 5 5 5

581

591

611

9